How could you?

Unless you have been in my shoes, you don’t understand. Unless you were raised to believe that your ultimate value and gift was as a giver. Unless you dreamed you’d find a man that would love and protect you—as you loved and protected him. Unless you thought you’d found that person and ridden the pink cloud of joy in the finding.

Unless you have agreed to bear children for that man, afraid, unsure that you were up to the task of mothering. Unless, in your dark night of the soul, you doubted your ability to love that greatly. Unless you have held the sweet porcelain skin of your infant–  a bundle of joy– and prayed nothing bad would ever befall them. 

Unless you have cooked fruits, veggies, meat from scratch, blended them in a food grinder, made baby food ice cubes in zip lock bags so your precious babies could have the freshest, the best. Unless you’ve spent hours pouring over your town’s offering for mommy and me classes, scrimping to afford going. Unless you’ve seen to teaching yourself how to run a home daycare business twelve to fourteen hours a day so you could contribute to the family budget and stay at home with your child. Unless you have wept in frustration and exhaustion, deep into the night, as you tried to sew a Halloween costume or a homemade Christmas gift. Unless you’ve sat on your five year old son’s bed as he cried, trying to reassure him that everything would be okay when you moved to a new town so his Daddy could start a new job he longed to undertake.

Unless you’ve taught yourself to trace trains, planets, constellations, unicorns on a bedroom wall and paint them by the light of a table lamp so your kids would have the coolest rooms to remember. Unless you’ve taught yourself to decorate birthday cakes, bought the supplies, mixed the frosting, planned the themes.

Unless you’ve accompanied your husband on his recruiting trips to colleges, sat next to him and chatted with interested students about the military in order to support him and his love of his career. Unless you’ve poured over weight watcher cookbooks, made ingredient lists, shopped, cooked and baked the goods to support a healthy lifestyle for hubby and kids—freezing in batches so school/work nights would be filled with healthy meals. Unless you’ve moved across town from a house you loved into a fixer upper so that the kids might attend a better high school. Unless you’ve stripped, sanded and restained the kitchen cabinets in that house—all by yourself—to make that house into a home. Unless you’ve rescued numerous orphaned animals making them part of the family. Unless you’ve returned to college in your forties to gain the ability to land a teaching job so that your dad would be proud and your hubby and you could afford to go on long dreamed of educational vacations with your kids. Unless you’ve taken the CBEST teachers exam with its math section that frightened the living daylights out of you because you were never good at math, but you could taste the income a teaching job would bring into your family.

Unless you’ve looked into hosting foreign students in your home and done it, so your kids and they could learn about each other. Unless you’ve driven your kids to and fro to extra curricular classes and activities so they might have lots of experiences from which they may find one or two they love. Unless you’ve offered to be a single mom for an entire year while your husband pursues another dream job so your daughter does not have to be torn from her high school in her senior year. Unless you’ve burned the midnight oil to write engaging lesson plans for your class of kindergarten students. Unless you’ve moved again to be close to ailing, elderly parents, watching the two people you’ve looked to for strength your entire life melt into progressive degenerative diseases of old age. Unless you’ve had your husband tell you he’d spent all your retirement savings on maintaining his image as the generous good guy, then had a nervous breakdown over it–suicidal at your best friend’s son’s wedding. Unless you’ve visited your psychotic husband and your son in a mental hospital. Unless you’ve driven miles to pick up your son from one hospital after another as he fought the battle of epilepsy-induced mental illness. Unless you’ve been afraid of your own son as he screamed at you, red faced with rage, telling you your life was meaningless unless you followed his ideas. Unless you’ve dealt with mental illness alone while your husband is working out of town.

Unless your husband and daughter kept her/thier choice to go into the military a secret until the deal was done because they didn’t want to hear your possibly cautionary opinion—

Unless you’ve been blindsided by a spouse high on marijuana and self centered righteousness telling you in front of your adult children that he’d had a years long affair with your brother’s ex. Unless your spouse has thrown clothing at you, run from you when you see him slipping back into his addiction—caught red handed. Unless you’ve had your pots and pans dented, your refrigerator door marred, your glassware and plates broken by a raging shame-based, validation addicted spouse.

Unless you’ve had your adult daughter tell you that you treat her father terribly without the ability to give you even one example. Unless you know in your heart that you have never intentionally done anything to hurt anyone—least of all your spouse.

Unless you know you have worked past reason to uphold your family, your spouse, your children and help them to achieve their dreams.

You don’t understand.

You don’t understand.

You don’t understand.

The absolute desolation, heart wrenching, gut twisting grief in finding out that your life had been made a mockery by the man who swore to love, honor and cherish you. You don’t understand how it feels to know he intentionally pursued her, made love to her, shared his body with her, caressed and kissed and fondled her—gave her what he promised to you and you alone.

And then he blamed you for not being enough for him. “What did you expect?” he jeered.

He blames you for rejecting him because you weren’t sexual enough with him.

He tells your adult daughter stories and she blames you too.

You don’t understand.

How could you?

You didn’t live as a faithful, over giving, over committed wife and mother all twenty seven years of his affair. You didn’t live in the naïve belief that just because you gave your all he would love you. Love you—the verb.

You don’t understand. You can’t understand. Because you are not me. You are not the tender hearted dreamer that believed in happily ever-afters for those who work and toil and give and love, deep and far and wide. This doesn’t happen to us. Not us—the good, the faithful, the giving, the perfectly imperfect planners and lovers of life and marriage and family.

You haven’t had your heart split wide open in one moment of vicious confession, meant to wound. You haven’t struggled and worked and read, and prayed and invested in the dream of a marriage and family that could weather any storm. Any storm as long as we remained a team—we faced it together. Except together was an illusion. A lie. A wicked knife to the heart, bullet to the head, life ending lie.

Except it didn’t kill you. It should have, ought have, wished it had. It would have to be easier to be dead than to live every minute of every day in the torturous agony of betrayal. The knowledge of being betrayed.

Betrayal.

Betrayal.

Betrayed. Done deal. No re-do’s

You don’t understand.

How could you.

You aren’t me.

Thank God…there but for the grace of God, goes you.